APPENDICES.

443 of this firm and kind friend of Nelson. Navy agent, banker, commissariat contractor, he had acquired a large fortune, was the political' friend of successive cabinets, many differences in which were more than once arranged at his mansion in St. James' Square. Tempted to try to acquire a seat in Parliament, he was convicted of outrageous bribery, and imprisoned for a long period; but on his release—such was the lenient view then entertained of election bribery-he was appointed to important posts by the Government,' and continued his previously successful career. In 1808, however, at the time of the investigation of the commissariat frauds, he was tried and convicted, and sentenced to twenty-one months' imprisonment. Of his subsequent career I have no knowledge. After the battle of the Nile he had struck medals for all ranks, of his presentation of one of which he gives the following interesting account to Nelson :—

"ST. JAMES' SQUARE, April 6, 1799.

"I waited upon the King early last Sunday morning, at the Queen's House, and presented him with a gold and silver medal. He received them most graciously, and with much joy and pleasure, and paid me compliments upon the occasion. I was alone with the king for a full hour, when much of the conversation was about you. It is impossible to express how warmly he spoke of you, and asked a thousand questions about you. I promised his Majesty a copper gilt and a bronze medal, as soon as I received them, which I shall also have the honour of presenting."

"ST. JAMES' SQUARE, May 7, 1799.

"I have been again at the Queen's House, and have given the King. a copy of your last letter to me, giving an account of your health, which he read twice over with great attention, and with apparent emotion of concern. I said a great deal (but not too much) regarding my idea of your situation. His Majesty speaks of you with the tenderness of a father. He was much pleased with the portrait 1 presented to him of you, and said he thought it much like." 2

Medal. Hope with the emblem standing on a rugged rock, olive branch in right hand, medallion profile of Nelson on the left. Hope

' Commissary-General of the Forces and Treasurer of the Ordnance, and in the latter position-though without salary-had full employment, as a banker, of the millions of money that passed through his hand. ("State Trials in the Nineteenth Century," vol. i. p. 223-5.)

2

Autographs in Nelson Papers; Despatches, vol. iii. pp. 321-2, note.

crowned with oak and laurel. Motto round medallion, "Europe's Hope and Britain's Glory." Legend, "Rear-Admiral Lord Nelson of the Nile." Reverse, the Bay of Aboukir with British Fleet advancing on French Fleet at anchor. Legend, "Almighty God has blessed his Majesty's arms," and on the exergue, "Victory of the Nile."

One of these medals is in the possession of G. Blagden Westcott, the grand-nephew of Captain Westcott, who was killed at the Nile, to whose aged mother it was given by Nelson when he visited her at Honiton, and through whom it has come as an heirloom.

"Lord Nelson, not long before his death, on his way through Devonshire, slept a night at Honiton, the native place of Captain Westcott, who was killed at the battle of the Nile. Finding that the captain's mother and sister still resided there, Lord Nelson invited them to breakfast with him at the inn. In the course of conversation he inquired of Mrs. Westcott if she had received the gold medal, which her son would have been entitled to had he survived. On her replying that she had not, he immediately took off his own medal, which he was wearing suspended from a blue ribbon, and presented it to her, saying, 'You will not value it less because Nelson has worn it.' The medal is now, we believe in the possession of the great-nephew of the captain."

I

This was one of the medals struck by Alexander Davison, inscribed on the rim, "A tribute of regard from Alexander Davison, Esq., St. James's" (Letter from G. B. Westcott, July 14, 1890).

After Nelson's death at Trafalgar, Davison formed the guineas found in the hero's purse into the following curious memorial, of which, through the kindness of its present possessor, I am enabled to give an engraving. The memorial was exhibited at the opening of the New Town Hall, Portsmouth, by the Prince of Wales :—

"A curious memento of Lord Nelson was offered for sale lately, and purchased by Mr. James Griffin, bookseller, The Hard, Portsmouth. When the admiral received his fatal shot at Trafalgar, eighty-four guincas, mostly of the spade-ace pattern, were found in his purse, and these, with other effects of the Hero, were sent to Mr. Alexander Davison, Nelson's intimate friend and naval agent. Davison had the guineas soldered together and formed into a pyramidal roof, with the obverse and reverse faced alternately uppermost, the whole being supported at the angles on the shoulders of four full-length weeping female figures, in dull metal gilt, a polished

ball intervening between the supports and corners of the roof. In the centre of the canopy thus formed is a metal gilt miniature sarcophagus, which stands on a plinth, formed of four steps, and is surmounted by a viscount's coronet resting upon a cushion. The handles of the sarcophagus are composed of the stern and prow of an admiral's barge. The trophy, which is capped by a trident, bears on its front the following inscription: These Guineas were in Lord Viscount Nelson's purse at the time he received the fatal wound off Trafalgar, Oct. 21, 1805.' The back and sides are inscribed thus: Battle of St. Vincent, 14th Feb., 1797'; Battle of the Nile, Aug. 1, 1798'; ' Battle of Copenhagen, 2nd April, 1801.' The trophy became the property of the late William Joy, of Cheam, in whose possession it remained forty years and by whose executors it was put up to auction. It is satisfactory to know that the relic is now within sight of the old Victory, Nelson's flagship, and at the centre of the naval service." (Newspaper cutting sent to me July 14, 1890, by G. B. Westcott, Captain Westcott's grand-nephew.)

1 Gentleman's Magazine (cut out of the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette Daily Telegram, December 4, 1866, by G. B. Westcott, R.N., the grand-nephew). See also Notes and Queries, Third Series, vol. viii. p. 263.